T-Mobile 6+ 64GB - invalid IMEI?

[cversion7]

Just got my iPhone 6 Plus 64GB from T-Mobile last night and went to fire it up on wifi, but Activation Failed. Waited a little while until I had time to call and swap service to the included nano sim and tried again, Activation Failed. Spent the next 3-4 hours on and off the phone with T-Mobile and their Apple team soft resetting and even connecting the phone to iTunes in recovery mode and reloading it with 8.0.2, still Activation Failed. T-Mobile said if all this didn't work, I would have to take it to an Apple store. Went to bed, defeated.

Called T-Mobile this morning to get my service swapped to my old sim and again the only option given for the iPhone was to take it to an Apple store. I called Apple, gave them my IMEI and was told it was invalid. They cannot even find the device in their system.

I have an appointment after work to take it in and see what can be done to fix it or swap it.

Before I get asked, the activation that fails is in the initial welcome setup of the phone. I turn it on, see Hello and Swipe to Setup, choose English, choose North America, choose connection method (LTE or Wifi, doesn't matter). Screen flashes that the iPhone is going to activate and may take a few minutes. Less than a second later, Activation Failed. No home screen, no icons, no request for Apple ID. Dead in the water.

 

[Just_Me_D]

Just got my iPhone 6 Plus 64GB from T-Mobile last night and went to fire it up on wifi, but Activation Failed. Waited a little while until I had time to call and swap service to the included nano sim and tried again, Activation Failed. Spent the next 3-4 hours on and off the phone with T-Mobile and their Apple team soft resetting and even connecting the phone to iTunes in recovery mode and reloading it with 8.0.2, still Activation Failed. T-Mobile said if all this didn't work, I would have to take it to an Apple store. Went to bed, defeated.

Called T-Mobile this morning to get my service swapped to my old sim and again the only option given for the iPhone was to take it to an Apple store. I called Apple, gave them my IMEI and was told it was invalid. They cannot even find the device in their system.

I have an appointment after work to take it in and see what can be done to fix it or swap it.

Before I get asked, the activation that fails is in the initial welcome setup of the phone. I turn it on, see Hello and Swipe to Setup, choose English, choose North America, choose connection method (LTE or Wifi, doesn't matter). Screen flashes that the iPhone is going to activate and may take a few minutes. Less than a second later, Activation Failed. No home screen, no icons, no request for Apple ID. Dead in the water.

They are probably going to swap it out for you. Demand that they do, if they don't offer to swap it out since you just got it.

 

[x0xkaronx0x]

Did it get fixed?

 

[cversion7]

I am still dealing with an expensive paperweight. I went to the Apple Store and they tried restoring the device, but could not get it to activate. Since they could not pull up the serial number from my IMEI, there was nothing they would do. I called T-Mobile right then and was told there was a backlog of processing the IMEI numbers and to wait 3-4 days and it should work.

I called T-Mobile today to try to verify this story since it still doesn't work. I found out two pieces of information: there is a backlog but it is on Apple's end and the SIM in my iPhone will never work now that service was turned off on that SIM (an Apple device only sort of issue).

I went and got a new SIM (for free) and it is still "back logged" and not working. I also have t-Mobile and Apple pointing fingers at each other. Apple won't replace the device until it appears in their system (at which point I would no longer need their help) and T-Mobile won't do anything because it is Apple's fault (and they likely don't have anymore of them).

I am trying to get it to activate every few hours and trying to be patient, but it sucks.

 

[jsntrenkler]

Sorry to hear about this. Hope they get it resolved quickly. I had a bad run in at the Apple Store last week. Almost seems as if their customer service has become less generous with the new retail boss in position. Only time will tell.

 

[cversion7]

After spending another hour on the phone home with tmo and apple then another 2.5 hours in the Apple Store, they finally replaced my phone and all is well. Two people (techs) tried to tel me that replacing the device wouldn't fix the issue. It wasn't until I got apple support to talk to a manger at the store did anything start to happen. Store techs wanted me to just wait. Glad the saga is done.